Three proposals explicate the social origins/education transitions association. Maximally maintained inequality (MMI) (Raftery and Hout 1993) claims the association declines only at transitions high origin persons universally or nearly universally make. Relative risk aversion (RRA) (Breen and Goldthorpe 1997) suggests broader inequality reduction is possible and depends on changing costs and norms. Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) (Lucas 2001) contends meaningful inequality reduction is elusive because qualitatively different types of education maintain consequential inequality, even at universal transitions. Each proposal has evidentiary support, yet because proposals highlight different association indices, most are described informally, and their distinctiveness is disputed, comparative evaluation requires a prior, clarifying, formal analysis. Formal analysis reveals that MMI is non-falsifiable. RRA and EMI are falsifiable and are potentially but not necessarily complementary. Future research should investigate whether and why RRA, EMI, both, or neither, apply.
Agresti, Alan.1990. Categorical Data Analysis. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.
2.
Arfi, Badredine.2006. ‘Linguistic Fuzzy-Logic Social Game of Cooperation .’ Rationality and Society18: 471-537.
3.
Arum, Richard, and Michael Hout.1995. ‘The Early Returns: The Transition from School to Work in the United States.’European University Institute, School-to-Work Conference, Florence, Italy.
4.
Ayalon, Hanna, and Yossi Shavit.2004. ‘Educational Reforms and Inequalities in Israel: The MMI Hypothesis Revisited.’ Sociology of Education77: 103-20.
5.
Ayalon, Hanna, and Abraham Yogev.2005. ‘Field of Study and Students’ Stratification in an Expanded System of Higher Education: The Case of Israel .’ European Sociological Review21: 227-41
6.
Breen, Richard, and John H. Goldthorpe .1997. ‘Explaining Educational Differentials: Towards a Formal Rational Action Theory.’Rationality and Society9: 275-305.
7.
Breen, Richard, and Jan O. Jonsson .2000. ‘Analyzing Educational Careers: A Multinomial Transition Model.’American Sociological Review65: 754-72.
8.
Breen, Richard, and Meir Yaish.2006. ‘Testing the Breen-Goldthorpe Model of Educational Decision-Making,’ pp. 232-58 in Mobility and Inequality: Frontiers of Research in Sociology and Economics, edited by Stephen L. Morgan, David B. Grusky, and Gary S. Fields.Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
9.
Cameron, Stephen V., and James J. Heckman .1998. ‘Life Cycle Schooling and Dynamic Selection Bias: Models and Evidence for Five Cohorts of American Males.’Journal of Political Economy106: 262-333.
Davies, Richard, Eskil Heinesen, and Anders Holm.2002. ‘The Relative Risk Aversion Hypothesis of Educational Choice.’ Journal of Population Economics15: 683-713.
12.
De Graaf, Paul M., and Harry B.G. Ganzeboom.1993. ‘Family Background and Educational Attainment in the Netherlands for the 1891-1960 Birth Cohorts,’ pp. 75-99 in Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, edited by Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
13.
Erikson, Robert, and Jan O. Jonsson .1996. ‘Explaining Class Inequality in Education: The Swedish Test Case,’ pp. 1-63 in Can Education Be Equalized: The Swedish Case in Comparative Perspective, edited by Robert Erikson and Jan O. Jonsson.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
14.
Garnier, Maurice A., and Lawrence E. Raffalovich .1984. ‘The Evolution of Educational Opportunities in France.’Sociology of Education57: 1-10.
15.
Gerber, Theodore, and Michael Hout.1995. ‘Educational Stratification in Russia During the Soviet Period.’ American Journal of Sociology101: 611-60.
16.
Hauser, Robert M., and Megan Andrew.2006. ‘Another Look at the Stratification of Educational Transitions: The Logistic Response Model with Partial Proportionality Constraints.’Sociological Methodology36: 1-26.
17.
Hout, Michael.2006. ‘Maximally Maintained Inequality and Essentially Maintained Inequality: Crossnational Comparisons.’ Sociological Theory and Methods21: 253-78.
18.
Hout, Michael, Adrian E. Raftery, and Eleanor O. Bell .1993. ‘Making the Grade: Educational Stratification in the United States, 1925-1989,’ pp. 25-49 in Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, edited by Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
19.
Jonsson, Jan O.1993. ‘Persisting Inequalities in Sweden,’ pp. 101-32 in Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries , edited by Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
20.
Laughlin, Charles D.1993. ‘Fuzziness and Phenomenology in Ethnological Research: Insights from Fuzzy Set Theory.’Journal of Anthropological Research49: 17-37.
21.
Lieberson, Stanley.1985. Making it Count: The Improvement of Social Research and Theory. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
22.
Lieberson, Stanley.1998. ‘Examples, Submerged Statements, and the Neglected Application of Philosophy to Social Theory,’ pp. 177-91 in What is Social Theory? The Philosophical Debates, edited by Alan Sica.Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc.
23.
Long, J. Scott.1997. Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
24.
Lucas, Samuel R.2001. ‘Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and Social Background Effects.’American Journal of Sociology106: 1642-90.
25.
Manski, Charles F.1992. ‘The Impact of Sociological Methodology on Statistical Methodology: Comment.’Statistical Science7: 201-3.
26.
Mare, Robert D.1980. ‘Socioeconomic Background and School Continuation Decisions.’Journal of the American Statistical Association75: 295-305.
27.
Mare, Robert D.1993. ‘Educational Stratification on Observed and Unobserved Components of Family Background,’ pp. 351-76 in Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, edited by Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
28.
Müller, Walter, and Wolfgang Karle.1993. ‘Social Selection in Educational Systems in Europe.’ European Sociological Review9: 1-23.
29.
Need, Ariana, and Uulkje de Jong.2001. ‘Educational Differentials in the Netherlands.’ Rationality and Society13: 71-98.
30.
Raftery, Adrian E., and Michael Hout.1993. ‘Maximally Maintained Inequality: Expansion, Reform, and Opportunity in Irish Education, 1921-75.’Sociology of Education66: 41-62.
31.
Roncek, Dennis W.1993. ‘When Will They Ever Learn That First Derivatives Identify the Effects of Continuous Independent Variables or "Officer, You Can’t Give Me a Ticket, I Wasn’t Speeding for an Entire Hour".’Social Forces71: 1067-78.
32.
Shavit, Yossi.1993. ‘From Peasantry to Proletariat: Changes in the Educational Stratification of Arabs in Israel,’ pp. 337-49 in Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, edited by Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
33.
Shavit, Yossi, and Hans-Peter Blossfeld .1993. Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
34.
Stolzenberg, Ross M.1980. ‘The Measurement and Decomposition of Causal Effects in Nonlinear and Nonadditive Models.’Sociological Methodology11: 459-88.
35.
Tolsma, Jochem, Marcel Coenders, and Marcel Lubbers.2007. ‘Trends in Educational Inequalities in the Netherlands: A Cohort Design.’ European Sociological Review23: 325-39.
36.
Treiman, Donald J., and Kazuo Yamaguchi .1993. ‘Trends in Educational Attainment in Japan,’ pp. 229-49 in Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, edited by Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
37.
Tsai, Shu-Ling, and Hei-Yuan Chiu.1993. ‘Changes in Educational Stratification in Taiwan,’ pp. 193-227 in Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries, edited by Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
38.
Walters, Stephen J.2004. ‘Sample Size and Power Estimation for Studies with Health Related Quality of Life Outcomes: A Comparison of Four Methods Using the SF-36.’Health and Quality of Life Outcomes . http://www.hqlo.com/content/2/1/26
